OVERVIEW

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Brief Synopsis

A frigid young housewife decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute.

Séverine is the beautiful wife of a young, successful surgeon, Pierre Sérizy. Although she loves her husband, Séverine is sexually unmoved by his too-gentle lovemaking and is haunted by fantasies in which Pierre orders her pulled from a horsedrawn carriage and whipped by two liveried coachmen. One day Séverine learns that a respectable married woman she knows has been earning extra spending money by working part time in a brothel. Intrigued, Séverine visits the establishment and, following a talk with Madame Anaïs, agrees to work there every afternoon under the name "Belle de jour." Now sexually fulfilled, Séverine finds that her relationship with Pierre is improving. But one of Séverine's regular clients, Marcel, a cocky, gold-toothed hoodlum, becomes so enamored of her that he asks her to go away with him. When she refuses, Marcel finds out her true identity, shoots Pierre, and is himself killed by the police. As a result of the shooting, Pierre is left paralyzed, blind, and speechless. Séverine feels responsible for her husband's tragedy, and her masochistic needs are perhaps fulfilled by the realization that she will have to wait on Pierre for the rest of his life. Pierre's friend Henri Husson, who has visited Madame Anaïs' establishment and seen Séverine there, arrives to tell Pierre about Séverine's other life. Henri leaves, and Séverine turns toward Pierre, who has begun to weep. He suddenly gets up as though nothing were wrong with him, and they look out the window as the horsedrawn carriage goes past, empty.